Bruce Perens on the Status of Open Source

Lars Lehtonen writes to tell us that Bruce Perens has posted the text of his LinuxWorld press conference. In his talk he takes a look at many of the hot topics surrounding the open source community including ODF, NTP vs RIM, and GPLv3. From the article: "It's interesting to note that Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist implicated in scandal with Republican Tom Delay, was employed by Bill Gates' dad's law firm "Preston Gates", a political proxy for Microsoft. Microsoft succeeded in lobbying both Republicans and Democrats to oppose ODF."

Comments

Re:No It's Not Interesting

[hey!]

And this means what, exactly?

Not much yet. It's just a set of dots which, if they could be connected, would make a very interesting picture indeed. But I agree, the dots haven't been connected. Yet.

Abramoff pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, but didn't have much of anything to do with Microsoft or ODF.

Doesn't mean a thing.

The way this works is, the prosecutor targets a sleazeball who's got connections. He puts together a portfolio of charges on him that, if half of them were proved, would put Mr. Sleaze in jail for the half life of a proton. In exchange for only having to endure being sodomized for three or four years, Mr. Sleaze agrees to hand the prosecutor the ends of all the webs he's been holding.

Microsoft and the Gates family may be on the other end of one of those threads. Or they may not; or even if they are it may not in the prosecutor's view be the best place to start. The prosecutor might also decide to make examples of one or two individuals and leave it at that.

knows his stuff

[PMuse]

This is why reading Bruce is better than reading some random guy on slashdot. The man knows his stuff. Go RT whole FA. It's worth it just to hear some one say it straight without screwing something up.

Re:Mistaking "interesting" for "suspicious".

[Bruce Perens]

Sometimes when you think a connection might be there, the best you can do is put that connection in front of empowered people who might find something. Abramoff was working as a lobbyist for Gates. I'd imagine the main thing on the agenda would be anti-trust, but competition with Free Software in government might be there as well. After all, we have had multiple published incidents where US diplomats lobbied a foreign government not to make a pro-free-software decision.

Bruce

Amazing Spin.

[twitter]

Mr. Bruce Perens, to me, sounds bitter and impatient how ODF and Open Source is being adapted around the country, and the world.

Who says that rate is slow? ODF is less than a year old. Yet, two state governments have moved adopt it. Can you name any other technology state governments have adopted so quickly?

Let's look at what Peren is angry about again:

[Character Assasination via Boston Globe] ... Microsoft succeeded in lobbying both Republicans and Democrats to oppose ODF. ... There's a chilling effect that stems from the harassment of Quinn: other government CIOs are being scared away from the Open Format issue because now they know that Microsoft will do its best to end their careers if they even try.

That's hardly what you have charged.

I'd like to see you address any of that with more than insults and "say it aint so." The short of it is that M$ used it's money and influence to bamboozle decision makers, the public and other CTO's. The CTO's, who are more difficult to fool than the others, are being threatened. The facts of the case seem to support Perens on all of the above.

If you are not angry about the end of Quinn's career over file formats, you have not thought enough about it.

Re:Mistaking "interesting" for "suspicious".

[Bruce Perens]

Well, list the most important things in your life, in order, and that will tell you a lot.

For me, it used to be that Open Source was #1. For Richard, Free Software always will be. For me now, being a dad is #1. And I find that I can look at Open Source with more objectivity because of this.

Bruce